Group Health

Is Your Health Care at Risk?

There are a number of workers that were laid off over the past year due to a fall in the economy. Companies can no longer find it in their budget to keep employing a high number of workers.

So will this budget decrease affect then group health care of the ones that are still employed?

According to the authors of Health Affairs: No. In a study of 2,995 randomly chosen public and private business employers on health benefits, it was found that most employers are willing to do what is necessary to expand group health insurance policies for their employees. Also, 9 out of 10 employers according to Health Affairs said that they would be willing to provide eligible low income workers with information so that they can learn how and apply for government administered health programs.

So what is it that employers have to do to expand health insurance coverage for their workers?

First of all, they will need to have and provide their employees with information about state public health insurance programs. In addition to that they will need to make payroll deductions for employee premiums in state programs and also reduce employee’s withholding tax by the amount of a government-provided tax credit (Health Affairs).

Another option that is being explored is giving a tax credit to those who are considered low income workers so that they can in turn use it to either buy their own insurance or even to help to pay the premium that they have for their current employer’s insurance coverage.

Health insurance needs to remain n reach for every income level of American’s. We need to have find jobs for those who do not currently have them or who have been laid off because of budget decreases in their company or specific department and we also need to make sure that the jobs that are offered are ones that have attainable and affordable health insurance coverage for the employees. Offering insurance that is not adequate coverage or is out of reach for the workers affordability wise just increases the number of people who are uninsured. Right now nearly 16 percent of Americans are uninsured according to the Health Insurance Resource Center and it is up to the government, employers to make sure that it is available. And it is up to employees to make sure that they are taking the initiative to know what their health insurance covers and for those that don’t have it, to seek out programs or ask their employers how they can obtain health coverage affordably. It is up to us to make sure that we don’t slip further into the uninsured group.